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www.docleafsafe.com -the way forward
for travel arrangers everywhere
docleafsafe.com™ offers two distinct services; one which
places the onus for health and safety back with overseas
suppliers rather then the tour operators who use them,
giving them ultimate responsibility for due diligence but at
the same time allowing them a measure of control. The second
offers smaller travel operators a simple and cost effective
way of auditing its suppliers allowing them to meet due
diligence requirements.
Currently overseas suppliers can be subjected to multiple
health and safety inspections depending on the number of
tour operators which use them. With docleafsafe™, they can
undergo just one annual audit, which will provide them with
a complete safety report and final certification. These take
the form of an inspection undertaken by qualified docleaf® health and
safety staff to review all health and safety elements
required by current EU recommendations and directives.
For other tour operators, travel agents and dot coms who
send varying numbers of customers to a wide range of
different hotels, docleafsafe.com™ operates an on-line supplier
self-assessment process enabling these companies to audit
all of the hotels they use. This cost effective approach
provides a solution to checking overseas suppliers by
getting them to complete the on-line web based
self-assessment audit. The system then automatically risk assesses
them on a on a gold, silver, bronze or non compliant basis.
docleafsafe.com™’s audits cover the following elements, fire, pool, child
and
general safety as well as hygiene.
docleafsafe.com™ is also particularly pertinent to travel
agents, some of whom don’t realise that by putting together
their own packages, for example a coach tour to a Christmas
Market in Germany, they are subject to the EU Package Travel Directive
and therefore legally liable. docleafsafe™’s self assessment
audits will allow them to evaluate suppliers to ensure they
comply with due diligence requirements and the duty of care
to their customers.
There has also been considerable
interest in the
docleafsafe.com™ scheme in other parts of the World. At the
recent PATA ( Pacific Asia Travel Association) Travel Mart
in Kuala Lumpar much interest was generated and discussions
are now underway to establish a base in the Far East.
This will complement our operations in Spain and Portugal
where docleaf® already
have overseas based staff. The
docleafsafe.com™ database is starting to get populated
rapidly.
docleaf® has already
completed a series of audits in Egypt. Hotels in the Sinai,
Luxor, Cairo and El Alamein have all been issued with their docleafsafe.com™
certification.
In addition a number of hotels and Safari Lodges are currently being
audited in Kenya on behalf of the Kenyan Association of
Hotel Keepers and Caterers (KAHC).
David Perlr,CEO, believes that: “Judging
from the response, we’ve already had, docleafsafe.com™
will actively encourage hotels to further
improve their health and safety standards.
We expect a certain amount of friendly rivalry
between hotels as they compete against each
other to get the highest ratings on their
certificates. For suppliers completing self
assessment audits, it certainly focuses
their minds on the issues of health and
safety and as a result many are reviewing
their current policies".
for more information on docleafsafe.com™ click below.
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25 Crisis Management Lessons
Whilst one of docleaf®
core strengths is the operational management of crises
as well as the communications, you may find the
following article of interest. It is written by Jonathan Bernstein
a US based Crisis Management Communications consultant.
In a recent newsletter, reproduced below, he reviews the
consulting assignments he's had this year and highlighted 25
of the lessons inherent in the various situations.
1. One hostile and/or ego-driven person with a computer and
some Internet savvy can do a huge amount of damage to any
organization.
2. Damaging information present on the Internet spreads
virally, being reprinted by other Web sites or even news
organizations regardless of accuracy. Ignoring it will only
make matters worse.
3. All legal threats - e.g., threatened lawsuits, regulatory
investigations - are potential threats to reputation and
should be brought to the attention of whoever is responsible
for reputation management/PR as soon as they're identified.
Typically, however, legal counsel and even senior company
management delay notifying their PR advisor, internal or
external, until the stuff hits the fan or is about to
imminently. Rushed consideration of PR strategy and
messaging is seldom as good as that which can be produced
given more lead time.
4. There are PR agencies and consultants who do not think
about or, out of greed or ego, fail to consider how much
damage they do to their clients by claiming to have more
crisis management capabilities than, in fact, they do.
5. Mid- to large-size organizations, in particular, need an
automated system of notifying their Crisis
Management-related teams and impacted stakeholders instantly
and concurrently.
Relying on human "call chains" by people who have other
responsibilities and/or who are also trying to put out the
fire is unrealistic and results in delays and more damage.
6. Sometimes it's wiser to make peace than to be right.
7. Even organizations who think that they are very
transparent in their internal communications are usually
surprised to learn about some of the flaws uncovered by a
vulnerability audit.
8. The ability to make a flawless personal presentation to
1,000 people at a conference does not automatically
translate, without training, to an ability to conduct an
on-camera media interview related to a crisis.
9. Don't get into a public spat with government agencies or
the media, they carry bigger sticks than you do and have
long memories.
10. With rare exception, media interview skills were not
part of a CEO's scholastic experience and - even if they
were - they have eroded to the point of uselessness if not
practiced.
11. Any significant operational decision has a public
relations impact, internally or externally, and should be
considered in that light before being finalized. Some
decisions which seem to make perfect sense financially, for
example, may end up seriously damaging relationships with
stakeholders and, ultimately, cost money versus saving it.
12. Everyone in your organization, from highest-paid to the
lowest, should understand what your organization considers
to be a crisis and their individual responsibilities for
reporting potential crises.
13. Everyone in your organization, from highest-paid to the
lowest, should understand what their individual
responsibilities are for crisis response.
14. The actions of every employee and contractors
considered, de facto, to be part of your organization have
the impact to promote or damage your reputation.
15. Be VERY VERY CAREFUL about what you say or don't say in
email! Anything put into email can be (a) leaked; (b)
inadvertently distributed to the wrong people; (c) be
legally damaging; and (d) be revealed through the disclosure
process in any formal legal proceeding.
16. With regard to media interviews, if you don't say it,
they can't use it. It is rare (although not completely
unheard of) for a reporter to actually make up a quote. When
spokespersons claim that this has happened, usually it's
because they have been sucked in to a leading question,
e.g., Reporter: "Mr.
Smith, do you think that this is the worst thing that has
ever happened to your company." Smith: "Yeah, maybe."
Sentence that appears in the paper: "This may be the worst
thing that has ever happened to our company," said Smith.
17. It's much wiser to encourage and even reward internal
whistle-blowing than to find yourself at the wrong end of
news coverage, a lawsuit and/or a governmental investigation
prompted by a whistle-blower.
18. The court of public opinion can destroy your
organization much more quickly than a court of law.
19. Criticism is only damaging if your stakeholders believe
it - but never assume you know, without asking, what your
stakeholders believe!
20. Crisis communications and emergency response plans are
not created to provide a flawless method of response to
every crisis situation. They are created to establish a
system for effective response to any crisis and to serve as
a basis for training crisis responders.
21. If you think a crisis-related response mechanism will
work, but you've never tested and trained with it, you're
inviting much higher levels of damage when the crisis
occurs.
22. More and more attorneys-general initiate their
investigations based on stories written and/or produced by
consumer reporters.
The corollary: if you directly serve consumers, consumer
reporters are a special risk for which you must plan,
because they will respond to inaccurate allegations as if
they were the truth and do not like to produce headlines
that read, "Consumer Allegation Proven False by Responsible
Company."
23. Companies that respond well to crises can actually gain
market share and enhance their reputation.
24. If crisis preparedness does not receive the full support
of an organization's leadership - particularly the CEO - the
organization will not be prepared, even if they have some
plans on the shelf and a bit of training to go with it.
25. No person, no organization, has a reputation so fine
that it is immune to reputation threats from within or
without. The arrogance inherent in denying this reality has
been a major contributing factor to innumerable crises.
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